"Will you obey-will you submit?" she asked, as the strokes fell between Maud's separated legs. "Are you sorry for your insubordination?"
"Yes, yes, yes," convulsively gasped the unfortunate girl, "I–I-I will-obey, I-will-will, oh, stop! Oh, I will-I will-obey."
Mademoiselle positively caressed the fragments of the rod as she finished the castigation and ordered Maud to lie as she was until she had permission to rise.
She kept her so during the whole time that we were at tea; and then Maud had to get up and take away the tea things, disturbed and trembling, covered with shame, flushed and disordered.
Maud was in penance until the end of the month.
The bedroom to which I was taken was that I originally occupied. It communicated with Mademoiselle's room by a door of the existence of which I had been unaware until this evening.
When the dressing bell rang, Elise shew me into it. She had unpacked my things and dressed me for dinner.
My dress was not that of a young lady, but of a mere chit of a girl, scarcely coming to my knees. It was of some white fluffy material and underneath it I was compelled to wear a stiffly starched petticoat which made it stick out and disclosed my limbs almost to my waist.
Mademoiselle without seeming to do so made me occupy positions which set off my costume to the fullest extent.
"Has it really been cut off?" whispered Beatrice to me in the course of the evening, all her inquisitive, prying looks failing to satisfy her. And Agnes, behind me at the door, slipped her hand under my skirts and felt my possessions.
"No," she said, "he is still a boy."
Agnes' own skirts did not reach her ankles and I longed for a revenge.
Beatrice in her quiet, matronly way rejoined: "You know, Julia, you are mine. I have a score to settle with you. You have broken your oath. Wait; an opportunity will soon come."
What infinite disdain she managed to throw into the tone in which she uttered the word "Julia!"
Three or four weeks passed in very monotonous routine by which time I had quite recovered from the operation I had undergone in London; and to my surprise I found myself more susceptible and longing in a more reckless way to put my instrument into the middle of my charming tyrants with whom I was so intimately and familiarly associated. I longed to see them blush and tremble under me as I probed with my most sensitive and shame-dealing organ the secret recesses of their beautiful bodies.
All this time Beatrice maintained, notwithstanding my numerous mute appeals, a distant and cold reserve towards me.
And one day, when Agnes, while we were out walking, complained of my impudence and disobedience because I would not climb a tree to please her by displaying my nakedness, it was Beatrice who suggested to Agnes to whip me with nettles.
The punishment was cruel. Agnes stung me more than she whipped me. While I lay on my face on the soft mossy bank, held down, my Beatrice slowly drew the bunch up and down between my legs and did not forget to include Mons. Priapus and his purse. For three days subsequently I suffered great pain.
It was upon one of our half-holiday afternoon rambles that Beatrice first attacked me.
We were in a lonely and out-of-the-way part of the wood, and Agnes in her romping with me had very much disordered my clothing. My drawers Beatrice had already removed and they were stowed away in her pocket.
"Now, you harlequin," began Beatrice, seating herself upon a mound of grass under the green spruce firs and looking very imperious in her luxurious girlish beauty, "just you come here and reply to my questions."
"Here is a sceptre," gaily cried Agnes, putting into Beatrice's hand a bundle of fir twigs; and, sitting down beside her with a smiling countenance, she regarded me with a comical expression of mixed solemnity and amusement.
"Kneel down there, Julia, in front of us."
"I'll tell you," cried Agnes. "We'll strip him, tie his hands, and make him sit or lie on the ground between us."
No sooner said than done. Agnes flew to me, and quickly rid me of all my clothing, notwithstanding my frantic opposition. My cries and protests were unheeded. Agnes grasped me violently while Beatrice quickly divested me of every single garment, and sat upon them.
Agnes then tied my hands behind me with a handkerchief and forced me back, downwards on to the narrow strip of green ground between her and Beatrice who towered over me, holding the rods in her hand.
"So Elise sold you to Maud and she took you to her studio. What did she do to you?"
"She-she-"
"Be quick, Julian!"
"She undressed me."
Agnes here squeezed me pitilessly in front.
"Oh! Oh! Oh, don't! Oh, don't, Agnes, you hurt!"
"Of course, I do-I intend to."
"She undressed you?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle came in suddenly and found me."
"Found you!"
"Ye-ye-yes; found me like this-naked in Maud's room."
"Oh!" said Agnes; and she leant over me, playing vigorously with me, and gazing into my face.
"Turn him over!" said Beatrice.
A slight struggle accomplished this.
"Now I shall whip your bottom before we go any further for being naked in my sister's room."
And Beatrice administered a sound flogging with her wretched twigs.
"Now, Master Julian!" said Beatrice, recovering her breath by deep inspirations: "Please account for the blood on Maud's chemise and on the coverlet of the bed. Oh, yes! I saw both before they went to the wash."
"No doubt the blood came from you," continued Beatrice derisively; "the effects of the flogging Maud gave you, no doubt; but I want to hear it from you yourself."
I was aghast.
"Concealment is of no use. Confess!"
"Well, Beatrice, Maud wanted me to stand as a model for a statue; and you know you had made me promise I would not do that, and so I resisted and objected and made excuses."
"And so Maud whipped you; hence the blood, eh?"
"No, Maud began coaxing me and playing with me-"
"Like this?" suggested Agnes, suiting the action to the question.
"Oh, oh, oh, Agnes! Oh, yes!"
"And you slipped your hand underneath her clothes?"
"Yes-no-yes."
"And then she-"
"She lay on the bed."
"Yes, and you became a model for a living statue?"
"Yes!" I gasped.
If my hands had not been bound, I should have covered my face with them.
"And you were mine for five years, and gave yourself away?"
"Oh, Beatrice!"
"Now, just tell us how you did it?"
"She-she-lay down."
"On her back?"
"Yes, on-her-back; and I lay face downwards upon her, with what Agnes has got in her hand inside Maud."
"You wretch! You beast!" exclaimed Agnes.
"Inside her! Where?"
"Oh, inside-"
"What she pees with?" asked Beatrice sternly, and peremptorily.
"Y-e-s."
"You monster!" exclaimed Agnes.
"And what next? Did it shoot something into her?"
"I had-had to-she made me-I forced it in, and Maud bled and then-"
"You went into a convulsion?"
"Yes."
"Very well," said Beatrice. "And now, when last I saw this thing, it had not a red head like that, it was covered with skin. What did your governess do to you?"
"She took me to London and had the skin cut off."
"By whom?"
"By a lady-doctor."
Agnes was listening intensely.